Cycle News

VOL. 50 ISSUE 26 JULY 2, 2013 knew I was going to work in this business. I wasn't sure how I was going to do it, but I was going to work in this business." Janson also took up racing, at first flat track and later in scrambles and motocross, which he participated from the mid-1960s to the early '80s. When he was in college, Janson worked as a flat-rate mechanic in bike shops. In the late 1960s he went into the Marine Corps and that allowed him to pursue higher education via veteran's benefits and ironically it was a Geology degree that landed Janson at the AMA in 1981. "My specialty was land-use policy," Janson explained. "I had written a number of papers on the various land-use issues at the time that were of interest to motorcyclists. At that time there was a strong environmental movement that was very antimotorcycle. I was working at the bike shop and had sent a number of papers off I'd written on the impact of off-highway vehicles on public lands, national forest and BLM lands and I got this call from Ed Youngblood and I was blown away. This was Ed Youngblood at the AMA! A job had opened up in the Government Relations department and I'd been sending resumes into the AMA with the goal of trying to get in the racing department. My passion always was motorcycle racing." That began a nearly 15-year career at the AMA where Janson worked on land use policy and helped develop the first ATV racing series that still runs today. He later worked in Pro Racing eventually making his way up to Director of Professional racing in 1992. In the mid-1990s Jason began the next phase of his life, working for the promoters of Supercross, eventually ending up as director of Supercross and Vice President of Motorsports for PACE, which later became SFX, Clear Channel and Live Nation. Janson was one of the key personnel behind the explosive growth of Supercross from the mid1990s to the mid-2000s. "I got the opportunity to work for Charlie Mancuso, who is in my view probably the greatest pro- P113 moter in America," Janson said. "I learned more watching him than I had collectively all the way to that point. I thought I knew a lot about the sport, but I really didn't know a lot about the business. To be able to shift from the sport side to the business side and watch real business experts, it was a wonderful journey." In 2008 Janson sat in the pressroom at Daytona International Speedway and heard a vision of motorcycle racing that he wanted to be part of. Ultimately Janson's 18 months as Vice President of Competition for DMG didn't work out the way he had anticipated. "So in 2010 I tried to retire, but it didn't quite take," Janson said. He worked for a time with the management at Donington Park in England, a place he called one of the motorsports Cathedrals. "I had the opportunity to go to the MotoGPs and the World Superbike and British Superbike events and got to experience the business side of those promotions at that time and that was a really big experience for me." Janson was also on the ground floor, and is still involved today, with basketball legend Michael Jordan's entry into motorcycle racing as a team owner. "I got a call one day and was told that in 10 minutes Michael Jordan would be calling me. I thought my friends were goofing on me," Janson recalls. "Ten minutes later sure enough the phone rings and it's Michael Jordan." Michael Jordan Motorsports was created as an entity within what was then SFX and Janson is proud of the fact the team is still in the sport 10 years later. "I've had almost a Forest Gump opportunity to watch this sport from the sidelines," Janson says. "All I ever wanted from when I got into this thing was a pit pass. Everything else has really been a bonus. I've had a blessed life and quite an adventure." CN Subscribe to nearly 50 years of Cycle News Archive issues: www.CycleNews.com/Archives

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